TOBA TEK SINGH, Dec 31: Owners of sugar mills have been blamed for traffic jams on the highways as to the results of their delay in purchasing sugar cane from growers who are forced to park their loaded tractor trollies on main roads.

District Nazim Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq said this while speaking at a district council meeting here on Wednesday. District Naib Nazim Haji Ghulam Rabbani presided over the meeting.

The District Nazim said that problems faced by sugar cane cultivators were grave and a committee consisting of union council nazims had been formed which would hold talks with millers to resolve the issue.

The House also passed a resolution in which it expressed concern that millers were exploiting the farmers and were giving less price to them with the so-called assertion of low quality sugar cane.

It also said that middlemen had been allowed by owners to purchase sugar cane from farmers on rates much less than the fixed rates against cash payment and delay in the purchase was part of this corrupt practice.

Through another resolution, the House condemned the efforts of some parliamentarians who were trying to get transferred Gojra ASP Saqib Ismail Memon as he was an honest officer and was not fulfilling their whims. The meeting urged the Punjab chief minister to take stock of the situation.